The Top Sixty Over Sixty Business Plan Kit helps you to develop your plan in a step by step process with space for notes and the ability to respond to critical questions. The kit takes you from your purpose to your exit strategy.
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Excerpt from Kit
The Business Plan Kit
Steps and insights into Creating an Effective Business Plan By Helen Hirsh Spence and Debra Yearwood
The business plan is the foundation of your business. When you are busy the plan helps you to stay on track and move through progressive objectives until reaching your goals. The business plan should be a living document reflecting the vitality of your business. Your plan is also a useful way to keep thoughts and ideas in focus and top of mind.
Despite its importance, the business plan is often the first casualty of entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurs often don’t create a plan. They say that their plan is all in their head. Or they create a plan to satisfy investors or financial institutions and abandon it almost as soon as they achieve their goal. The reality is, the plan is how you know whether you are on track or about to derail. Rather than treat it as a necessary evil, look at the plan as a partner.
Additional information and resources related to the separate elements of the business plan are available in subsequent chapters.
What a Business Plan Does:
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It helps to define and understand the business.
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It defines the key markets and identifies the key players and the environment in which
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you operate.
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It describes products or services and identifies the unique offering.
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It describes how the product or services will be marketed and sold.
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Once the business is underway, the plan explains how the business operates on a day-to-day basis (HR, finances, administrative duties) and identifies the processes used.
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A plan also identifies barriers, obstacles and challenges and how to address them.
Create a Clear Statement of Purpose
Step one in developing a business plan is the creation of a clear and compelling statement that describes the problem to be solved and its beneficiary.
Use the following questions to get started. Don’t hesitate to make quick notes based on the first things that come to mind.
Is the customer an individual or a business?
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If a business, what kind or what size business?
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